Modern televisions come in many shapes and sizes, and with different capabilities. Televisions can range in size from as small as a few diagonal inches to as large as over one-hundred diagonal inches. Differing display capabilities include the portion of the color spectrum which can be displayed (i.e., gamut) and the maximum/minimum resolution that can be displayed. Another difference between various televisions is how a television processes incoming information. For example, different televisions can render different portions of the color spectrum. Still other variations between televisions exist or are possible.
Televisions are typically used with a source such as a video game system, a cable box, or a DVD player. The source can provide a signal for display on the television. Complex sources, such as video game systems, can provide significant processing and rendering capabilities, which are used to generate the final image for display on the television. The source is often configured to produce signals corresponding to images with colors outside of the receiving television's (or other form of display) gamut capability. If the source sends signals corresponding to such out-of-gamut colors, the television will, for example, map the sent colors to in-gamut colors, using valuable processing time. Thus, sources often send signals corresponding to colors that will likely be in-gamut, thus not utilizing the full gamut of the television. The processing algorithms used by the source are typically set at the point of manufacture, and/or can be user-selectable (e.g., a video-game player can choose the resolution of a signal output to a television). A video signal is transmitted from the source to the television using a connection such as a DVI, HDMI, YPrPb, CVBS, S-Video connection.
The source has limited time and/or resources available for graphics processing and transmission of a video signal to a television. For example, a typical video signal consists of approximately 30 frames-per-second, which means that a complete frame must be generated approximately every 33 milliseconds (ms). To achieve this speed, various processing methods can be used such as only rendering visible portions of objects in a display space, or selectively rendering colors in each frame. Furthermore, the connection between a source and a television can have limited bandwidth placing further limitations of the transmission of a video signal from the source to the television.